


The Cabin

by koalathebear



Category: Homeland
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, F/M, Fluffy Ending, Post-Canon, Speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-11
Updated: 2015-12-11
Packaged: 2018-05-06 03:44:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5401721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/koalathebear/pseuds/koalathebear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set some time after season 5.  Shameless fluff written to comfort myself and enjoyingjoy.</p><p>Carrie takes Quinn back to the cabin by the lake to heal ...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Cabin

**Author's Note:**

  * For [enjoyingjoy](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=enjoyingjoy).



> Originally posted over at the Carrie & Quinn livejournal community: http://carrie-quinn.livejournal.com/66657.html

_The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep._  
\- Robert Frost

*

Carrie opens the door of the abandoned cabin across the lake, her mouth tightening. There was a time it was well-kept - someone's holiday home. Now it's been abandoned to the embrace of the woods, the blinds disintegrating and a fine layer of dust covering the floor and shabby furniture.

Quinn's sleeping bag is spread out on the wooden floor of the sun room beside his backpack but he's nowhere to be seen. He's off in the woods somewhere, grim-faced and distant. Exhaling a faint sight, Carrie sits down on the sleeping bag cross-legged and waits for him to return.

She doesn't have long to wait and when he sees her, he frowns slightly, his mouth tightening the expression in his eyes unreadable. He's unshaven, his hair tousled and his face drawn and haggard.

"Quinn - what the fuck are you doing?" she asks him quietly, a little sadly, gesturing around the sad and abandoned sun room.

He shrugs. "What does it look like I'm doing?"

"I have no idea," she tells him. "Come back to the cabin - you don't have to be over here ... come back to running water, hot water - electricity..." she tries to smile but fails miserably. They've barely spoken a word since coming out to the cabin. It's been awkward silences, glances that skitter off the to the side to avoid direct eye contact. Then there are the tears that sting her eyes when she hears his rasping breath as his recovering lungs gulp for precious oxygen.

It's been months since Berlin but it still hurts like hell whenever she looks at him. The guilt that twists inside her gut, tightens her throat at the memory of his face as the sarin gas takes him. She swallows hard, remembering the emptiness of his gaze, his blood ... and his pain. All because of her.

The doctors are amazed and optimistic about his chances of a full recovery. The sarin was comparatively weak, the atropine was administered prior to exposure and he is ... was ... a strong and healthy man. When she suggests to him, hesitantly that he goes to her cabin to recuperate, he's quiet at first but then he says yes.

He has nowhere else to go.

After the first night though, he packs up his things and vanishes - going to the other side of the lake to the abandoned cabin in the woods instead of staying in the relative comfort of the Mathison cabin.

"This is where I stayed ... when I was watching Brody," he tells her suddenly and unexpectedly, his voice low and raspy. She starts and stares at him, shock in her eyes. "He was my target. I was here watching when you were here with him."

"You were supposed to kill him?" she demands in shock, her voice thick with disbelief. "Shit." her voice is shaking. " _Shit_." She closes her eyes for a moment. "That's why you were assigned?"

"Yes."

"On whose orders."

"Estes." He doesn't bother lying. There's no point anymore.

Carrie stands up and starts to back away from him like she doesn't know him, this man whom she has invited into her home and back into her life.

"Well why didn't you?" she demands hoarsely. "Why didn't you kill him?" This is Quinn. If he'd wanted to kill Brody, he would have.

His light eyes rest on her face and a bittersweet smile twists his mouth.

"You," he tells her simply. His smile turns to an expression of self-loathing as he watches her stumble out of the sun room and run through the woods back to the cabin.

*

Sitting in the gazebo by the lake, staring out at the water fixedly, she senses his approach before she sees him.

"Hey," he says in a low voice, standing a short distance from her.

"I know you never liked him."

Quinn shrugs and doesn't answer.

"But you disobeyed Estes anyway. Even though Brody was nothing to you. Even though you despised him."

"You loved him. _Love_ him," he says scrupulously.

" _Thought_ I did," she corrects him and there's a flicker in Quinn's eyes but he says nothing. The sun is warm and oddly comforting and a gentle breeze ripples the waters of the calm lake. There's no one else in the world except the two of them.

"Why are you staying over there, Quinn?" Carrie asks abruptly, gesturing towards the abandoned cabin across the way. "I made up the guest room for you ... even fucking cooked for you and instead you creep around in the shadows eating fucking ... tuna from a can." She sounds frustrated and more than a little affronted.

He sits down on the bench a short distance from her. A safe distance and Carrie looks at him for the first time. He's freshly showered and shaved, a faint colour on his pale face and for the first time in months there's a hint of life in his eyes. Quinn lifts a hand and stares at it, grimacing as it still trembles uncontrollably.

"That will get better."

"And you know that, how?" he asks her.

She rolls her eyes. "Please. I listen to the doctors even if you don't."

His face twitches. It's an almost infinitesimal movement but she's watching him closely. "What?" she demands accusingly. He says nothing.

"Don't ignore me, Quinn. I'm right here."

"That's why," he tells her, his voice low and harsh.

"What?" she demands, confused and bewildered.

"You're tip toe-ing around me like I'm a goddamned cripple. You're not my nurse. I don't need your pity and I sure as fuck don't need your guilt."

Carrie flinches. This is more than they've spoken in weeks. "Geez you can be a real asshole, you know that?"

That makes him smile despite himself but the smile vanishes quickly and he's serious again. "I didn't ask you to quit ... I don't need anyone looking out for me like I'm useless."

Carrie glares at him. "Fuck you and fuck your attitude, too," she tells him evenly. "I thought you were dead ... because of me ...maybe I needed a break from all of that, too - did you ever think about that?"

"I made my own choices, Carrie. Don't put it all on you. It's not all about you. It's about what I chose to do. You're not the fucking centre of the universe."

She stands up, face stormy as she paces around the gazebo. "You're an ungrateful sonofabitch," she bites out.

He shrugs and rises to his feet as well, staring down at her with an unreadable expression in his eyes. "I don't want your guilt or even your fucking gratitude, Carrie," he tells her evenly. "Stop treating me like I'm made of glass or damaged goods ... "

The crushing guilt and self-recrimination in her eyes whenever she had looked at him had been overwhelming. It had been more than the lingering effects of the nerve gas that made it hard to breathe and he had grabbed his things and left the cabin - and the pity.

"The fuck, Quinn!" she almost shouts, her eyes more than a little wild and her face twisting with frustration and emotion that has been repressed for far too long. "What do you want from me?"

He finds himself smiling despite himself as he stares down at Carrie Mathison ... angry and volatile, the patronising solicitude of the past few months completely vanished as she glowers at him.

He reaches out and takes her hand in his. Disarmed and more than a little startled, she stares up at him searchingly.

"I sure as fuck don't want to be in the guest room," he tells her coolly and her eyes widen in shock.

"Uh ... some days you can barely stand, getting a bit ahead of yourself aren't you?" she taunts him even as a smile starts to curve her mouth and the anger dissipates.

He hasn't laughed in months ... maybe even years but suddenly he wants to laugh.

"Try me," he dares her and she slants him a glance as she gives his hand a tug and they walk back to the cabin, hands clasped. He can hardly believe it - but it's true. They're finally out. Together.

****

end


End file.
